Quinn considers new year date for Aurore D’Estruval

An impressive winner on her seasonal reappearance at Wetherby at the start of 
November, the four-year-old stepped up to the top level in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle and performed admirably to fill the runner-up spot behind Irving.

The daughter of Nickname will step down in grade on her next appearance, with a trip to Sandown currently the 
favoured option.

“The mare is very well and there are two races she could run in,” said Malton-based Quinn.

“There’s a conditions race on January 1 at Cheltenham, but the race we’d like to run her in is a mares’ only two-and-a-half-mile race at Sandown on January 3

“If that goes okay, there’s the mares’ Listed race at Doncaster at the end of January and after that we’d take stock and see what comes.”

Malcolm Jefferson will wait until the ground dries up, meanwhile, before bringing Attaglance back to the track following a disappointing 
effort at Cheltenham on Saturday.

Having missed the Paddy Power Gold Cup on account of testing conditions, the eight-year-old could only manage seventh place in the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup.

Jefferson felt the ground was primarily to blame and will now bide his time to find a suitable next opportunity.

The North Yorkshire handler said: “He’s come out of the race fine.

“I just think the ground was too tough for him on the day more than anything.

“He also hadn’t run for a while and I think he’s been getting sick of going up the gallops without having a race.

“Some of the horses haven’t just been firing, so maybe that was a factor as well.

“We know he wants better ground – his form tells you that – so we’ll just wait and see where we go next with him.

“There’s no good ground anywhere at the moment. Normally you’d look at something at Doncaster, but it was even soft there last weekend.

“The only good thing is he might come down a couple of pounds after his run the other day.”

Davy Russell and Philip Enright are free to ride at the big Christmas festivals after the five-day bans they received for the ‘whip borrowing’ incident at Clonmel on December 7 were reduced to two days on appeal.

Dual champion jockey Russell was riding the Charles Byrnes-trained 8-13 favourite Leave At Dawn in the Powerstown Handicap Hurdle, while Enright was aboard 33-1 shot Backinyourbox.

The stewards on the day found Russell and Enright had brought racing into disrepute, and they were handed five-day suspensions. However, following yesterday’s hearing they will now sit out the action on December 20 and 21 only.